Poland to fight ISIS

“Poland will join the fight against Islamic State, its defense minister said on Wednesday, though he signaled that the scale of its involvement would depend on NATO’s response to Russia’s renewed assertiveness on the alliance’s eastern flank. The announcement, made by Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz after a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Brussels, confirmed an earlier Reuters report that Poland would boost its Middle East involvement in an attempt to convince its allies to shift NATO forces eastwards. “Poland has joined the actions, which are now so crucial, on NATO’s southern flank,” Macierewicz told reporters. “When it comes to details … we will continue to discuss it, particularly as we consider it in the broad context of NATO’s situation, hoping that both the U.S. and NATO as a whole will back Poland and other countries on the eastern flank with their … permanent presence.” Alarmed by Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its support for armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Poland hopes NATO will agree at a summit in Warsaw in July to send more troops to former communist eastern Europe.